December 2004 Archives

Oh brother.

I'm sure several people are busily working on President Bush's Inaugural Address. I think they should borrow this from Andrew Jackson's Second Inaugural Address (emphasis added):

Finally, it is my most fervent prayer to that Almighty Being before whom I now stand, and who has kept us in His hands from the infancy of our Republic to the present day, that He will so overrule all my intentions and actions and inspire the hearts of my fellow-citizens that we may be preserved from dangers of all kinds and continue forever a united and happy people.

Yes. In language closer to Bushspeak, "My fellow Americans, pray that I don't screw the world up too badly while I'm here."

Yesterday the AP ran a story on how employers are using GPS technology to keep an eye on what workers are doing.

In a related matter, the federal government is developing a Personal Identity Verification system (unified ID card) for Federal employees and contractors.

"What" you say, "the two aren't related"?

Well, they aren't related yet. But if the government and employers can use this technology to keep track of workers, why can't it be made available for everyone? And why not combine the two technologies, so that the eye in the sky can monitor where the cards (and their bearers) are?

It sure would be easier for the government to do certain things if it could keep track of where everyone is located. I bet we'll soon be needing this kind of thing to keep us safe from terror.

Congratulations to me. I've been named ABC News' Person of the Year.

But it's kind of curios that they never sent anyone to interview me. Or that I didn't learn about it until the broadcast. Oh well.

The Washington Post has an interesting analysis of the meager $2.2 billion spent by the campaigns in this year's presidential election.

Although the Democrats (and allied groups) spent nearly as much as the Republicans ($1.08 billion vs. $1.14 billion), the Post article points out factors which lead the GOP to get "more bang" for its buck:

• Swift Boat Veteran ads: an initial $546,000 ad generated a huge amount of media publicity and painted Kerry in a negative light, nearly wiping out whatever positive momentum the Senator obtained during the Democratic convention


• Research and strategic planning: because Bush faced no primary challenge, his campaign was able to focus on which voters it would target. In particular, research by consulting firms helped the GOP identify where the votes were:

  Republican firms, including TargetPoint Consultants and National Media Inc., delved into commercial databases that pinpointed consumer buying patterns and television-watching habits to unearth such information as Coors beer and bourbon drinkers skewing Republican, brandy and cognac drinkers tilting Democratic; college football TV viewers were more Republican than those who watch professional football; viewers of Fox News were overwhelmingly committed to vote for Bush; homes with telephone caller ID tended to be Republican; people interested in gambling, fashion and theater tended to be Democratic.

  Surveys of people on these consumer data lists were then used to determine "anger points" (late-term abortion, trial lawyer fees, estate taxes) that coincided with the Bush agenda for as many as 32 categories of voters, each identifiable by income, magazine subscriptions, favorite television shows and other "flags." Merging this data, in turn, enabled those running direct mail, precinct walking and phone bank programs to target each voter with a tailored message.
  . . .
  Dowd estimated that, in part through the work of TargetPoint and other research, the Bush campaign and the RNC were able to "quadruple the number" of Republican voters who could be targeted through direct mail, phone banks and knocking on doors.

  This level of precision helped the GOP win the "ground war"


• Campaign Coordination: The Democrats were dependent on outside advertising expenditures of 527 organizations. The Kerry campaign only controlled 62% of advertising spending, whereas the Bush campaign controlled 83% of pro-Bush ads. Since federal campaign election law prohibits 527s from communicating with political campaigns, this posed a huge obstacle in Kerry/Edwards' ability to offer a coordinated message. Whereas GOP ads featured a simple, constant theme (Kerry is a weak flip flopper), Democratic ads were all over the place on disparate issues. This handicap severely limited Kerry's ability to present a simple campaign narrative which would enable him to gain traction.

These three factors help explain what went wrong. During the campaign, the Swift Boat ad factor and the political "ground game" received a good amount of media discussion. But I think the significance of the coordination problem was underestimated.

Weak on defense:

The Pentagon plans to retire one of the U.S. Navy's 12 aircraft carriers and buy fewer amphibious landing ships for the Marine Corps as part of $60 billion in proposed cuts over the next six years, The New York Times reported on Thursday, citing Congressional and military officials.

The proposed reductions, the details of which are still being fine-tuned and would require Congressional approval, result from White House orders to all federal agencies to cut their spending requests for the 2006 fiscal year budgets, which will be submitted to lawmakers early next year.

Imagine all the howls if Senator Kerry had propsed such cuts three months ago.

We're at war!

Terror, terror, terror!

Yada, yada, yada.

"He's just not into photo ops."

--Rush Limbaugh Show substitute host on President Bush.

Of course he isn't. Why would anyone think that?

Montana?

Strategists running the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign probably aren't going to tally Big Sky Country in the safe category, but this does show that people running with the (D) can win where "liberals" aren't cool. The DNC should be taking notes.

Cool. South Knox Bubba has assembled a page with Rocky Top Brigade RSS feeds. Your central command center to monitor the ever-moving brigade.

President Bush on Saturday:

Christmastime reminds each of us that we have a duty to our fellow citizens, that we are called to love our neighbor just as we would like to be loved ourselves. By volunteering our time and talents where they are needed most, we help heal the sick, comfort those who suffer, and bring hope to those who despair, one heart and one soul at a time.

Initial Bush administration aid package for suffering tsunami victims: $15 million.

Amount spent each day in occupation of Iraq/Afghanistan: $140-$280 million.

Somehow I missed this morsel last weekend.

Rumsfeld speaking to the troops (emphasis added):

And I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten -- indeed the word "terrorized" is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be.

This would make for a pretty good tin foil hat moment, but it's unlikely terrorists would shot down a plane they had already hijacked. I think Rummy is just losing it.

A bad combination.

Are East Tennessee emergency officials prepared if a deadly tsunami strikes here?

Full coverage at 6 and 11 p.m.

Apparently Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has never grasped the famed "Pottery Barn" principle:

His [Rumsfeld's] main message over a four-city tour was quite different: that the insurgency has staying power and a seemingly endless supply of weapons, and the time has come for ordinary Iraqis to realize that they - not the Americans - will ultimately decide who prevails in this conflict.
. . .
During his visit, Rumsfeld said it would be unrealistic to predict that the level of violence will recede once the Jan. 30 elections are held. In the end, he said, it will be a "uniquely Iraqi solution," not American.

In other words, good luck with this one.

In related news, Iraq's largest Sunni Muslim party says it is withdrawing from the upcoming elections due to security concerns.

No problem, right? We'll just appoint some Sunnis to serve in the government. And let them come up with the "Iraqi solution."

Hey, we're trailblazers:

The state's TennCare program may not be around much longer, but former President Bill Clinton predicts that one day there will be a national program similar to it.

Whether TennCare is either modified or dropped, ''ultimately, I believe the nation will have a medical coverage plan that will look like TennCare,'' Clinton said. ''Ned Ray blazed a trail there.''

Clinton, who left the presidency in 2001, spoke highly of former Tennessee Gov. Ned McWherter, the Dresden Democrat who created TennCare while serving as the state's chief executive from 1987 to 1995. Clinton was interviewed recently by The Jackson Sun for a profile of McWherter.

Of course, since unlike Social Security, Bush has already "fixed" Medicare, I'm sure this is just wild speculation on Clinton's part. No mounting "crisis" in healthcare, right? Health savings accounts will clear up any lingering problems.

Devastating:

Massive tidal waves triggered by the largest earthquake to shake the planet in over 40 years have wiped out coastal areas across southeastern Asia as far as 1,000 miles away, killing nearly 3,000 people -- most of them in Sri Lanka and India.

Fifth largest earthquake since 1900. Scientific information on the earthquake available here.

UPDATE: The scope of this disaster is difficult to comprehend. And frankly, I'm somewhat reluctant to try. Entire villages washed away. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people simply vanished into the water, never to be seen again.

We can't control nature; we only control our response. An event generating this many deaths naturally raises the issue of preparedness:

In Los Angeles, the head of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said US officials who detected the undersea quake tried frantically to get a warning out about the tsunami.

But there was no official alert system in the region, said Charles McCreery, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's centre in Honolulu.

"It took an hour and a half for the wave to get from the earthquake to Sri Lanka and an hour for it to get ... to the west coast of Thailand and Malaysia," he said.

"You can walk inland for 15 minutes to get to a safe area.

"We tried to do what we could," he said.

"We don't have contacts in our address book for anybody in that part of the world."

Granted, these weren't developed areas. But it seems like some manner of warning could have been issued by radio stations or something. Even a few minutes of warning could have saved hundreds of people.

On this side of the globe, most of the initial reporting on the earthquakes could only be found on the Internet. First day TV news coverage was dreadful. MSNBC and Fox News gave this story less air time than a big snow storm, and CNN wasn't much better. Only now is CNN offering American viewers it's International feed. Not sure where it was before. We're talking about an event that killed several times as many people as 9/11. And it's had to fight for broadcast time with news of Christmas airline flight delays.

. . . to you and yours.

BREAKING NEWS: Islamic militants view the U.S. occupation of Muslim territory as a recruiting tool:

French journalists held hostage for four months in Iraq said their militant captors told them they wanted President Bush to win re-election.
. . .
One of the captors from the group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq said Bush's re-election would boost their cause, Malbrunot wrote in Friday's edition of Le Figaro, the French daily he works for.

"We want Bush because with him the American troops will stay in Iraq and that way we will be able to develop," Malbrunot cited the captor as saying.
. . .
Another captor, who described himself as the group's head of internal intelligence, told the men that the Islamic Army has four enemies: American and coalition troops, "their collaborators, that is to say Italian businessmen, or even French," as well Iraqi police and spies.

I'm shocked to read this. Who could have ever imagined that some people don't like foreign armies occupying their country?

The Washington Post has the breaking news that one month ago Secretary of State Colin Powell announced there weren't enough troops in Iraq.

Meanwhile, in Iraq Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld took on the "naysayers and the doubters" who have questioned the administration's claims that U.S. troops will be welcomed as liberators Iraq oil will pay for the war Iraq will become "free." Why all the doom and gloom concerning Iraq? Why it's the media's fault, of course:

"I guess what's news has to be bad news to get on the press."

Yeah, that crazy news media! What are they thinking reporting stories of people getting executed in broad daylight or suicide bombers killing dozens of people? Why do they hate the spread of freedom?

Don't forget the main elements in your celebrations:

• The Festivus Pole


• The Airing of Grievances


• The Feats of Strength

A Festivus for the rest of us!

UPDATE: Festivus history.

The Question (and today's news channel obsession): What can be done to keep our troops safe in Iraq?

That's the only way they will be safe. In case people missed this, there's hundreds of insurgents trying to shot or blow the Americans up. And the guerillas are going to keep it up for the foreseeable future. I'm sure the military has done all the easy things it can to avoid the casualties. And if there's any magic fixes left, those in the know aren't going to be publicizing them on national TV anyway.

It's the same old perspectiveless news phenomenon we see all the time. Had these 13 soldiers been killed in Iraq over a week or so--one or two at a time--it would have been business as usual and would only have warranted the obligatory footnote coverage leading into commercial breaks. But since they died in a spectacular attack, we're suddenly awash in stories about "keeping the troops safe" and "is Iraq descending into chaos?"

It's almost as though the media has the attention of a 12-year-old.

The current CNN "Quick Vote" poll addresses one of the divisive controversies of our time:

Are you dreaming of a white Christmas?
Yes
No

Right now the "nos" have it at 53%. [Cue Wolf Blitzer, "A reminder, this is not a scientific poll."]

For my part, I could go for an 80 degree Christmas. But I'm not holding my breath.

E. J. Dionne Jr. injects reason into this "Merry Christmas pow wow:

At the personal level: What in the world is "Christian" about insisting on saying "Merry Christmas" to a devout Jew or Hindu who might reasonably view the statement as a sign of disrespect? At the level of government: Is it really "Christian" for a religious majority to press its advantage over religious minorities, including nonbelievers?

Personally, I am partial to seasonal celebrations that acknowledge our religious diversity by allowing traditions to express themselves in their integrity. This is better than allowing only a commercial Christmas mush that satisfies no one except the retailers. Trying to delete every form of religious expression from the public square leads to foolishness. But one thing is even more foolish: for the religious majority to feel "oppressed" by a public etiquette designed to honor the rights of those outside its ranks.
. . .
The great Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote that "the chief source of man's inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men." I fear that in these Christmas debates, Christians are behaving not as Christians but as a tribe: "We will pound them if they get in the way of our customs and rituals."

Tribal behavior is antithetical to the spirit of peace and good will. In this season, we ought to be taking the most expansive possible view of our obligations to others.

A tribal mentality, no kidding. How far off kilter does your perspective have to be to wage a campaign against retail stores guilty of violating Christmas because they use "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas"? Yes, those we-make-half-our-profits-during-the-Christmas-season retail stores. We certainly don't want them disregard the meaning of Christmas with their politically correct banners, do we?

According to Josh Marshall, the Social Security Administration help line has been converted into an infomercial promoting the need for Social Security "reform."

Boy, I wonder how many other federal agencies advertise their need to be fixed when you call them? Does Medicare?

Oh yeah, I forgot. We already "fixed" that.

They've nearly stripped Christ from the White House Christmas, making baby Jesus "virtually invisible."

Wait until Bill O'Reilly finds out about this!

Via Fly Trap.

This is pretty funny. Via Digby, here's a web site attempting to organize "Christian constitutionalists" (there's a constitution in the Bible?) in moving to South Carolina "for the express purpose of re-establishing Godly, constitutional government."

Simply put, things are becoming too dreadful in America for the exiting Christians. What with abortion, gay marriage, ten commandments monuments being stripped from our courthouses, and other "abominations," such as the U.S. Supreme Court upholding McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform (apparently the Bible also prohibits regulating political campaign contributions). So it's off to South Carolina to rebuild America as God intended.

Why South Carolina? Well, the site notes that:

According to the Southern Focus Poll by the University of North Carolina, hundreds of thousands of South Carolinians already think the South would be better off as an independent nation.

Hey, there's a novel idea! And this sovereign mindset will come in handy when the exiting Christians execute their game plan:

South Carolina will secure the rights of her citizens by interposing her authority under the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The federal government operates outside its delegated powers in the areas of education, religion, abortion, domestic behavior, intrastate communication, intrastate commerce, taxation, welfare, healthcare, and a host of other subjects. Most powers concerning these topics are reserved to the States under the 10th Amendment. Therefore, we will see to it that South Carolina resumes her governmental authority in these matters and that federal mandates in violation of the 10th Amendment are ignored by the State.

Funny, I thought some of those things were included in the U.S. Constitution.

At any rate, if you're a resident of South Carolina, prepare to be saved by incoming political liberators.

If you're planning to commit a crime, it's probably not a good idea to use your home computer to contact the intended victim over the Internet. It seems law enforcement people are onto some sort of Internet protocol address thing.

Happy Winter Solstice! This is deemed the shortest day of the year, even though it doesn't have the latest sunrise or earliest sunset.

In addition to Winter Solstice, this is also celebrated as Saturnalia or Yule. Your observation may vary. I'm just glad that Spring is on the way.

So much for all that political capital:

Job Approval One Month After Re-Election
George Bush	49
Bill Clinton	58
Ronald Reagan	59
Richard Nixon	59
Lyndon Johnson	69
Dwight Eisenhower	79

Jeralyn Merritt:

The next time you hear "legal reform," instead of buying into Republican images of towns without ob-gyns to deliver babies because of the price of malpractice insurance, picture instead special interest groups with beaucoup bucks in outstretched hands to Congresspersons, pleading "Shield us."

See the Center for Justice and Democracy.

The Independent reports on the latest Bush administration efforts to sabotage an international agreement to combat global warming. Yes, this is the same administration that promised to offer some sort of alternative to the Kyoto Protocol. But that was a long time ago. And let's face it, this kind of process will get little, if any, coverage on TV news.

But wait, this gets even better (emphasis added):

The Americans also objected to mentions of the need to tackle global warming as opposed to adapting to it, and backed an extraordinary demand from Saudi Arabia that oil-producing states should receive billions of dollars in compensation from the rest of the world if they burned less oil.

Huh? We should pay countries for not using as much of their oil?

I'm not sure if the administration really favors this proposal, or if it's simply trying to insert a poison pill into the process. But either way it's evident that the energy industry is priority one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

This has apparently become an even bigger media issue than it was just a few days ago.

That liberal media.

How do these hot issues bubble up to the forefront? Atrios offers a a typical flow chart:

Local News --> Free Republic --> Drudge --> Talk Radio --> Some Wingnut Congressperson/State Legislator --> Fox News --> Lou Dobbs/Scarborough/etc... --> Another round on local news --> CNN --> mainstream print media. [order can vary slightly].

I haven't done any scientific research on this, but I'd guess the length of the above cycle has been reduced by at least 1/3 over the last three or four years.

Law enforcement authorities arrested another eco-terrorist a firefighter in the Maryland arson case.

I like news stories that you can learn lessons from. This report teaches us that if you commit a crime and don't want to be caught, you should not do either of the following:

(1) Describe the inside details of how the crime was committed to law enforcement; or

(2) Use your cell phone in the vicinity of a crime scene, then lie about your whereabouts.

Criminals do the darnedest things.

Understatement of the day:

"They didn't deserve this."

--Neighbor of Bobbie Jo Stinnett and her husband. The former was murdered Thursday and had her fetus cut out of her womb.

Come to think of it, I don't think anyone "deserves" that.

This is sick:

Several pregnant women have been killed in recent years by attackers who then removed their fetuses, in some cases to pass the children off as their own.

I've heard it's difficult to adopt babies, but it can't be that hard. Sheesh.

What do multi-milllionaries with free, employer-funded healthcare plans do to ensure they'll be able to see a doctor? Why, they set up a health savings account, of course:

President Bush may enjoy the best healthcare in America, and for free, too. But that didn't stop him this week from setting up a tax-deferred health savings account.
. . .
"He currently gets the best healthcare in the world, but when his term ends, he will return to the private sector," said Deputy Press Secretary Trent Duffy, adding that Bush also opened the account to set an example.

"He felt that this was the best move for his current and future healthcare needs," Duffy said.

That George Bush--he's just a regular guy like the rest of us, isn't he?

It appears that a string of Maryland arsons, which many news outlets--without any evidence--attributed to an "eco-terrorist," may actually have been the work of a security guard terrorist.

I'm shocked the media got another criminal investigation wrong.

UPDATE: Oh yes. Don't forget the blogosphere's criminal investigators.

Mr. Bin Laden sure seems to be keeping up on current events from his spider hole:

A new audiotape purportedly from Osama bin Laden was put on the internet yesterday, praising gunmen who attacked a US consulate in Saudi Arabia last week and blaming the royal family for unrest in the kingdom.
. . .
The hour-long speech surfaced on a website known as a clearing house for militant Islamist opinion, and extracts were later broadcast by the Qatar-based satellite channel al-Jazeera.

Next thing you know, he'll be cranking up a bin Laden blog.

Funny, the reporting I've heard regarding the tape doesn't mention bin Laden's deep-seated hatred of American "freedoms." But we all know that's the motive behind his every move.

Anyway, I don't know what kind of security they have surrounding Saudi oil facilities, but I think their guards should put in a little overtime over the next few months.

Wonderful:

Nearly a third of the nation's traffic deaths happened in states such as Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, Kentucky, Florida and Tennessee. About 64 percent of those accidents happened on rural roads from 1996 to 2000.

Glad I don't do that much driving on "rural" roads.

This isn't much of a surprise:

Most of the accidents involved late-night drivers who were either tired or drunk. The accidents happened mainly on weekends and involved young males between 16 and 25.

The study also found that drivers rarely wore seatbelts or in some cases, such as for pickup drivers in Georgia, were exempt from wearing seatbelts.

Georgia pickup drivers are exempt from wearing seatbelts? Why? I'm doubting they're any less accident prone than automobile drivers. That makes almost as much sense as motorcycle riders not wearing helmets.

We all have our niche causes, but in the grand scheme of things this really does seem like a trivial matter.

I'm growing weary of people who try to portray Christians as a persecuted American minority because some people object to having prayers, or ten commandments, or religious-based phrases dominating every conceivable public forum.

I dare say that some of these people would make a greater mark for Christianity if they pursued causes of social justice rather than monitoring the holiday dialogue of sales clerks at the local department store.

Another Alabama judge strikes:

A judge refused to delay a trial Tuesday when an attorney objected to his wearing a judicial robe with the Ten Commandments embroidered on the front in gold.

Circuit Judge Ashley McKathan showed up Monday at his Covington County courtroom in southern Alabama wearing the robe. Attorneys who try cases at the courthouse said they had not seen him wearing it before. The commandments were described as being big enough to read by anyone near the judge.
. . .
McKathan told The Associated Press that he believes the Ten Commandments represent the truth "and you can't divorce the law from the truth. . . . The Ten Commandments can help a judge know the difference between right and wrong."

Yes, I can see it now: "Hold on, counsel--let me check my robe before I make this evidentiary ruling."

I think Judge McKathan is in the wrong line of work if he needs special clothing to remind him of the difference between right and wrong.

Retiring U.S. Senator Zell Miller is joining Fox News as a contributor.

I'd pay to see Miller and Bill O'Reilly duel.

This Kerik nomination gone bust would be really funny, except that it reminds us of the incompetents running the executive branch. Many in the media have been pointing out Kerik's, uh, problems. But here's an angle on the nomination that hasn't undergone much scrutiny:

[Michael] ISIKOFF: And my colleague Mark Hosenball uncovered that arrest warrant sitting at his computer working for a few minutes. But one question on the loyalty issue. It's certainly true that Kerik and Rudy Giuliani worked together when Rudy was mayor and Kerik was the police commissioner and that they're close personal friends. But it's also worth remembering that they're also business partners, have been business partners for the last few years. And that--you know, that's a factor in considering why Giuliani pushed so hard to get Kerik the job.

MATTHEWS: You mean having him on the inside might have meant some contracts flowing in his direction?

ISIKOFF: Well, we certainly do know enough about Giuliani & Associates to know that they make their business in the security world and offering security assessments and security advice to governments and private contractors.

So I'm sure, if you're in that line of work, having your business partner as the secretary of homeland security is not unhelpful.

Heh. "Not unhelpful." That's quite the understatement. The financial fallout also explains why Senators Schumer and Clinton hopped aboard the Kerik wagon; they saw money in it for New York.

Poor Rumsfeld. It appears that the no-armor-because-of-physics and other assorted excuses have rubbed a few people the wrong way:

SCHWARZKOPF: The humvee was never considered an armored vehicle to begin with. So the system they've come up with is a jerry-rigged system which really doesn't give you much protection when you're going against being blown from a bump, a mine on a side of a road, or something of that sort.

But they deserve every bit of protection that we can give them. Absolutely. And I was very, very disappointed--let me put it stronger, I was angry about the words of the secretary of defense when he laid it all on the Army. I mean, as if he as the secretary of defense didn't have anything to do with the Army, if the Army was over there doing it themselves screwing up.

Cue another Bush statement on what a great job the Secretary of Defense is doing.

The first snow flurries of the season have been fluttering around Knoxville last night and today. I guess winter is officially here.

Your results may vary.

UPDATE: According to the official Resonance weather archives, the first snow last year occurred on November 28. This valuable trivia provided to you free of charge as a public service.

This looks like it will be an nice tool for Internet users:

The libraries of five of the world's most important academic institutions are to be digitised by Google.

Scanned pages from books in the public domain will then be made available for search and reading online.

The full libraries of Michigan and Stanford universities, as well as archives at Harvard, Oxford and the New York Public Library are included.

Online pages from scanned books will not have adverts but will have links to online store Amazon, Google said.

They say no advertising now, but I bet they figure out some creative ways to work some embedded advertising links in there.

At any rate, this will be one more excuse not to go to a brick and mortar library. Incidentally, I went to the local public library a couple weeks ago. It had been so long since I'd checked out a book there that my card was invalid. That's pretty bad.

Senator McCain attempting to straddle the fence again:

Senator John McCain said Monday that he had "no confidence" in Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, citing the secretary's handling of the war in Iraq and troop levels there that Mr. McCain deems insufficient.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican who is a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, said his comments were not a call for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation. President Bush "can have the team that he wants around him," the senator said.

I guess this is McCain trying to pretend he's not a party soldier even as he continues the march of a GOP soldier. If he really doesn't have faith in Rumsfeld, why doesn't he call for a change? This isn't the Department of Commerce we're talking about. People are dying because of decisions being made in the Pentagon. That should prompt dissatisfied senators to take a hard stand.

Bad choice:

When Marine Lance Cpl. David Battle learned he'd either have to sacrifice his ring finger or the wedding band he wore, he told doctors at a field hospital in Iraq to cut off the finger.
. . .
Doctors were preparing to cut off Battle's ring to save as much of his finger as they could.

"But that would mean destroying my wedding ring," he said. "My wife is the strongest woman I know. She's basically running two people's lives since I've been gone."

With his approval, doctors severed his finger, but in the chaos that followed, they lost his ring.

I'm guessing that had he gone with saving the finger, it probably won't have been misplaced on the way home.

I'm not married, so perhaps I'm not the best judge of this, but isn't replacing a wedding ring a lot easier than replacing a finger? Even when you factor in sentimental value?

Les Jones notes how Viacom is using 60 Minutes for free advertising.

If I had some free time, I could probably think of more examples of this. But right now I'm caught up in MSNBC's hard-hitting analysis of last night's Apprentice.

This whole story about armored U.S. military vehicles in Iraq is a great illustration of the pack-mentality of today's media.

A Tennessee reservist asks why his comrades are having to dig through the dump to shore up their vehicles. And within 24 hours the issue of armed vehicles is headline news on all the major news outlets and the Department of Defense is having multiple press conferences on the topic.

Only thing is, there's really nothing "new" here to report, because anyone following this war has known of the armored vehicle shortage for months. So what does the media "report" about this? Well, they spend one news cycle covering the fact that the reservist asked Rumsfeld a question about the armor (apparently something they've been unable to do for the past year. Then they cover more press conferences. Then they cover the fact that the reservist was "coached" by a reporter (why someone needed "help" to ask that question beyond me. Then last night they covered how Bush said if he was over there he might ask the same thing.

What was missing from this discussion? A number of the reports failed to mention that Bush, as commander in chief, could and should have been asking Rumsfeld that question a long time ago. And very few actually dug into the why of the shortage issue. But that would have required someone to do some actual research rather than following the cluster of press corp microphones around and repeating what they heard.

Our news media is great, isn't it?

I've obviously been away from the blog for a few days. I've kind of been in a bunkered down mode since the plane crash. I been reflecting on some of the larger issues in life, and haven't felt like writing much on current events.

On Tuesday I attended the memorial service in Dalton, GA. The nearly three-hour long service included life sketches, photographs, music, memories, and some preaching. I thought Jeremy Arnall's was the most effective in conveying a sense of who his brother was. Undoubtedly it was extremely difficult to talk of his twin brother on that stage, but Jeremy was very composed.

One of the most moving moments of the service was when Dave Cress's eight-year-old daughter played a hymn on the piano. She, likewise, held up very well. I, on the other hand, found the thing to be very difficult to watch.

On the flip side, I did get to visit with a few former Cohutta Springs Camp co-workers who I hadn't seen in several years. It's regrettable that it took this event to bring us together. But their companionship made the evening a little easier to take.

A Knoxville-bound plane crashed north of Chattanooga yesterday, killing the pilot and four regional administrators of the Seventh-day Adventist church. The group was en route to a ministerial meeting at the Knoxville First Seventh-day Adventist Church.

More coverage on the crash here, here, and here. (UPDATE: WATE TV news video available here.)

I personally knew one of the crash victims, Elder David Cress. He was a really great person. I'll have some reflections on him soon.

My prayers go out to all of the families affected by this tragedy.

Microsoft has introduced a new weblog service called MSN Spaces. Presumably, it's easy to use, but only offers limited customization.

Since these new "spaces" have comments, I wonder if this move will egg on the comment spammers (if that's possible).

Perhaps I'm leading a trend:

Census Bureau figures for 2003 show one-third of men and nearly one-quarter of women between 30 and 34 have never married, nearly four times the rates in 1970.
. . .
Data from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey released this week show the age at which someone typically marries for the first time increased from 20.8 for women and 23.2 for men in 1970 to 25.3 and 27.1, respectively, last year.

In 1970, about 6 percent of women 30 to 34 had never married; the figure was nearly 23 percent in 2003. The rate for never-married men in the same age group increased from about 9 percent to 33.1 percent.

On the other hand, there's this:

Census figures also show fewer Americans at older ages who never have been married. In 1970, 8 percent of people 65 and older never had married; now it's 4 percent.

There are several trends at work here, and your results may vary. I'm a little intrigued when I hear about people getting married in their teens or early twenties; seems like many people's lives don't settle down until they are in their mid-twenties. But perhaps that's just me.

I'm watching the evening news to see Tom say good bye. I rarely watch NBC news, but want to see if he strips down or does something crazy as he leaves the set.

I understand the attachment viewers gain toward the major news personalities, but I'm not sure I get the big brouhaha about how this may change network news. For the most part, these guys just read what other people provide, right?

Anyway, the program lead with almost breathless report about how Pentagon sources are claiming that the offensive on Fallujah may be a "turning point" in the war against the insurgency.

Oh brother.

How many times have we heard that one before? Let me count the ways.

--Fall of Baghdad
--Killing Saddam's son's
--Capture of Saddam
--Transfer of "sovereignty"

And I'm sure we'll be turning the corner again whenever they have elections.

Anyway, best wishes to Brokaw. Brian Williams will do just fine as his replacement.

I see the plastic container of grapes in the refrigerator sports a sticker promoting a recent DVD release.

How long will it be until someone is selling advertising on the toilet paper used in public restrooms? Or are they already doing that?

The last couple nights C-SPAN has been broadcasting the CBC news program The National. They've had a few segments playing up the differences between Canada and America. Canada is becoming a more diverse, tolerant, government-funded, European-type society. And we're becoming something else.

A couple interesting factoids from one of the reports:

--Q: Do you think the father should be master of the house?

Canada: 21% agree
U.S.: 52% agree

Moreover in the U.S. that percentage is on the rise, while in Canada the number has been dropping from 43% in 1983.

--Weekly church attendance:

U.S.: 50%
Canada: 20%

In the 1950s a higher percentage of Canadians claimed to attend church weekly.

--A greater percentage of the Canadian population is concentrated in urban areas. Forty percent of the population lives in the Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver metro areas. That's 60% if you throw in Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa.

I think it's safe to say that if the U.S. population were similarly concentrated in major cities, President-Elect Kerry would be getting ready to submit his proposals to the Democratically-controlled U.S. House and Senate.

--To some extent, Quebec is credited with being a driving force in the divergence between U.S. and Canadian values.

--Canadian "conservatives" would likely be Democrats if they were in America.

One of Canadians' apparent points of contention with President Bush is that it has taken him four years to make a trip across the norther border. You can get a little sense of that just from the front page of their major news site.

Here's what CNN is running regarding President Bush's speech this morning:

President Bush is in Halifax, Nova Scotia, today giving Canadians a belated "thank you" for helping Americans after the 9/11 attacks. When the United States closed its airspace after the terrorist strikes, more than 200 airliners were diverted to airports across Canada, where stranded travelers were welcomed into homes.

And here's what the CBC is running (emphasis added):

U.S. President George W. Bush arrived in Halifax on Wednesday to thank Atlantic Canadians for opening their doors to stranded Americans after the Sept. 11 attacks three years ago.

You do have to wonder what the point is in giving a "thank you" speech three years after the fact. Another excuse to talk about the "war on terror," I suppose.